by Marissa Bell Toffoli.
Evening, and I bend
toward the last light
with the maple trees.
It falls through each of us.
When the shadows shift
feels like a whisper, someone’s
breath, a secret in my ear.
This fall threw me.
The way one becomes two,
then three, and it goes on
until the common ground
is covered in leaves
and the past is hard to make out.
Everything was green,
then we rounded a corner
to catch it all afire.
We cling to what repeats,
ask for the night
so that we may be comforted
by the stars. If nothing else,
that unites us as a breeze
whisks shut the window of day.
The maple tree shivers.
Evening, and I bend.